“Been to ‘Rosemary,’“ he said. “Rotten play, you know — but passes the time awfully well. Oh, I quite enjoyed it.”
Lilly offered him Sauterne — the only thing in the house.
“Oh, yes! How awfully nice! Yes, thanks, I shall love it. Can I have it with soda? Thanks! Do you know, I think that’s the very best drink in the tropics: sweet white wine, with soda? Yes — well! — Well — now, why are you going away?”
“For a change,” said Lilly.
“You’re quite right, one needs a change now the damned thing is all over. As soon as I get out of khaki I shall be off. Malta! Yes! I’ve been in Malta several times. I think Valletta is quite enjoyable, particularly in winter, with the opera. Oh — er — how’s your wife? All right? Yes! — glad to see her people again. Bound to be — Oh, by the way, I met Jim Bricknell. Sends you a message hoping you’ll go down and stay — down at Captain Bingham’s place in Surrey, you know. Awfully queer lot down there. Not my sort, no. You won’t go down? No, I shouldn’t. Not the right sort of people.”
Herbertson rattled away, rather spasmodic. He had been through the very front hell of the war — and like every man who had, he had the war at the back of his mind, like an obsession. But in the meantime, he skirmished.
“Yes. I was on guard one day when the Queen gave one of her tea-parties to the blind. Awful affair. But the children are awfully nice children. Prince of Wales awfully nice, almost too nice. Prince Henry smart boy, too — oh, a smart boy. Queen Mary poured the tea, and I handed round bread and butter. She told me I made a very good waiter. I said, Thank you, Madam. But I like the children. Very different from the Battenbergs. Oh! — ” he wrinkled his nose. “I can’t stand the Battenbergs.”
“Mount Battens,” said Lilly.
“Yes! Awful mistake, changing the royal name. They were Guelfs, why not remain it? Why, I’ll tell you what Battenberg did. He was in the Guards, too — ”
The talk flowed on: about royalty and the Guards, Buckingham Palace and St. James.
“Rather a nice story about Queen Victoria. Man named Joyce, something or other, often used to dine at the Palace. And he was an awfully good imitator — really clever, you know. Used to imitate the Queen. ‘Mr. Joyce,’ she said, ‘I hear your imitation is very amusing. Will you do it for us now, and let us see what it is like?’ ‘Oh, no, Madam! I’m afraid I couldn’t do it now. I’m afraid I’m not in the humour.’ But she would have him do it. And it was really awfully funny. He had to do it. You know what he did. He used to take a table-napkin, and put it on with one corner over his forehead, and the rest hanging down behind, like her veil thing. And then he sent for the kettle-lid. He always had the kettle-lid, for that little crown of hers. And then he impersonated her. But he was awfully good — so clever. ‘Mr. Joyce,’ she said. ‘We are not amused. Please leave the room.’ Yes, that is exactly what she said: ‘WE are not amused — please leave the room.’ I like the WE, don’t you? And he a man of sixty or so. However, he left the room and for a fortnight or so he wasn’t invited — Wasn’t she wonderful — Queen Victoria?”
And so, by light transitions, to the Prince of Wales at the front, and thus into the trenches. And then Herbertson was on the subject he was obsessed by. He had come, unconsciously, for this and this only, to talk war to Lilly: or at Lilly. For the latter listened and watched, and said nothing. As a man at night helplessly takes a taxi to find some woman, some prostitute, Herbertson had almost unthinkingly got into a taxi and come battering at the door in Covent Garden, only to talk war to Lilly, whom he knew very little. But it was a driving instinct — to come and get it off his chest.
And on and on he talked, over his wine and soda. He was not conceited — he was not showing off — far from it. It was the same thing here in this officer as it was with the privates, and the same with this Englishman as with a Frenchman or a German or an Italian. Lilly had sat in a cowshed listening to a youth in the north country: he had sat on the corn-straw that the oxen had been treading out, in Calabria, under the moon: he had sat in a farm-kitchen with a German prisoner: and every time it was the same thing, the same hot, blind, anguished voice of a man who has seen too much, experienced too much, and doesn’t know where to turn. None of the glamour of returned heroes, none of the romance of war: only a hot, blind, mesmerised voice, going on and on, mesmerised by a vision that the soul cannot bear.
In this officer, of course, there was a lightness and an appearance of bright diffidence and humour. But underneath it all was the same as in the common men of all the combatant nations: the hot, seared burn of unbearable experience, which did not heal nor cool, and whose irritation was not to be relieved. The experience gradually cooled on top: but only with a surface crust. The soul did not heal, did not recover.
“I used to be awfully frightened,” laughed Herbertson. “Now you say, Lilly, you’d never have stood it. But you would. You’re nervous — and it was just the nervous ones that did stand it. When nearly all our officers were gone, we had a man come out — a man called Margeritson, from India — big merchant people out there. They all said he was no good — not a bit of good — nervous chap. No good at all. But when you had to get out of the trench and go for the Germans he was perfect — perfect — It all came to him then, at the crisis, and he was perfect.
“Some things frighten one man, and some another. Now shells would never frighten me. But I couldn’t stand bombs. You could tell the difference between our machines and the Germans. Ours was a steady noise — drrrrrrrr! — but their’s was heavy, drrrrRURUrrrrRURU! — My word, that got on my nerves....
“No I was never hit. The nearest thing was when I was knocked down by an exploding shell — several times that — you know. When you shout like mad for the men to come and dig you out, under all the earth. And my word, you do feel frightened then.” Herbertson laughed with a twinkling motion to Lilly. But between his brows there was a tension like madness.
“And a funny thing you know — how you don’t notice things. In — let me see — 1916, the German guns were a lot better than ours. Ours were old, and when they’re old you can’t tell where they’ll hit: whether they’ll go beyond the mark, or whether they’ll fall short. Well, this day our guns were firing short, and killing our own men. We’d had the order to charge, and were running forward, and I suddenly felt hot water spurting on my neck — ” He put his hand to the back of his neck and glanced round apprehensively. “It was a chap called Innes — Oh, an awfully decent sort — people were in the Argentine. He’d been calling out to me as we were running, and I was just answering. When I felt this hot water on my neck and saw him running past me with no head — he’d got no head, and he went running past me. I don’t know how far, but a long way.... Blood, you know — Yes — well —
“Oh, I hated Chelsea — I loathed Chelsea — Chelsea was purgatory to me. I had a corporal called Wallace — he was a fine chap — oh, he was a fine chap — six foot two — and about twenty-four years old. He was my stand-back. Oh, I hated Chelsea, and parades, and drills. You know, when it’s drill, and you’re giving orders, you forget what order you’ve just given — in front of the Palace there the crowd don’t notice — but it’s AWFUL for you. And you know you daren’t look round to see what the men are doing. But Wallace was splendid. He was just behind me, and I’d hear him, quite quiet you know, ‘It’s right wheel, sir.’ Always perfect, always perfect — yes — well....
“You know you don’t get killed if you don’t think you will. Now I never thought I should get killed. And I never knew a man get killed if he hadn’t been thinking he would. I said to Wallace I’d rather be out here, at the front, than at Chelsea. I hated Chelsea — I can’t tell you how much. ‘Oh no, sir!’ he said. ‘I’d rather be at Chelsea than here. I’d rather be at Chelsea. There isn’t hell like this at Chelsea.’ We’d had orders that we were to go back to the real camp the next day. ‘Never mind, Wallace,’ I said. ‘We shall be out of this hell-on-earth tomorrow.’ And he took my ha
nd. We weren’t much for showing feeling or anything in the guards. But he took my hand. And we climbed out to charge — Poor fellow, he was killed — ” Herbertson dropped his head, and for some moments seemed to go unconscious, as if struck. Then he lifted his face, and went on in the same animated chatty fashion: “You see, he had a presentiment. I’m sure he had a presentiment. None of the men got killed unless they had a presentiment — like that, you know....”
Herbertson nodded keenly at Lilly, with his sharp, twinkling, yet obsessed eyes. Lilly wondered why he made the presentiment responsible for the death — which he obviously did — and not vice versa. Herbertson implied every time, that you’d never get killed if you could keep yourself from having a presentiment. Perhaps there was something in it. Perhaps the soul issues its own ticket of death, when it can stand no more. Surely life controls life: and not accident.
“It’s a funny thing what shock will do. We had a sergeant and he shouted to me. Both his feet were off — both his feet, clean at the ankle. I gave him morphia. You know officers aren’t allowed to use the needle — might give the man blood poisoning. You give those tabloids. They say they act in a few minutes, but they DON’T. It’s a quarter of an hour. And nothing is more demoralising than when you have a man, wounded, you know, and crying out. Well, this man I gave him the morphia before he got over the stunning, you know. So he didn’t feel the pain. Well, they carried him in. I always used to like to look after my men. So I went next morning and I found he hadn’t been removed to the Clearing Station. I got hold of the doctor and I said, ‘Look here! Why hasn’t this man been taken to the Clearing Station?’ I used to get excited. But after some years they’d got used to me. ‘Don’t get excited, Herbertson, the man’s dying.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘he’s just been talking to me as strong as you are.’ And he had — he’d talk as strong and well as you or me, then go quiet for a bit. I said I gave him the morphia before he came round from the stunning. So he’d felt nothing. But in two hours he was dead. The doctor says that the shock does it like that sometimes. You can do nothing for them. Nothing vital is injured — and yet the life is broken in them. Nothing can be done — funny thing — Must be something in the brain — ”
“It’s obviously not the brain,” said Lilly. “It’s deeper than the brain.”
“Deeper,” said Herbertson, nodding.
“Funny thing where life is. We had a lieutenant. You know we all buried our own dead. Well, he looked as if he was asleep. Most of the chaps looked like that.” Herbertson closed his eyes and laid his face aside, like a man asleep and dead peacefully. “You very rarely see a man dead with any other look on his face — you know the other look. — ” And he clenched his teeth with a sudden, momentaneous, ghastly distortion. — ”Well, you’d never have known this chap was dead. He had a wound here — in the back of the head — and a bit of blood on his hand — and nothing else, nothing. Well, I said we’d give him a decent burial. He lay there waiting — and they’d wrapped him in a filthy blanket — you know. Well, I said he should have a proper blanket. He’d been dead lying there a day and a half you know. So I went and got a blanket, a beautiful blanket, out of his private kit — his people were Scotch, well-known family — and I got the pins, you know, ready to pin him up properly, for the Scots Guards to bury him. And I thought he’d be stiff, you see. But when I took him by the arms, to lift him on, he sat up. It gave me an awful shock. ‘Why he’s alive!’ I said. But they said he was dead. I couldn’t believe it. It gave me an awful shock. He was as flexible as you or me, and looked as if he was asleep. You couldn’t believe he was dead. But we pinned him up in his blanket. It was an awful shock to me. I couldn’t believe a man could be like that after he’d been dead two days....
“The Germans were wonderful with the machine guns — it’s a wicked thing, a machine gun. But they couldn’t touch us with the bayonet. Every time the men came back they had bayonet practice, and they got awfully good. You know when you thrust at the Germans — so — if you miss him, you bring your rifle back sharp, with a round swing, so that the butt comes up and hits up under the jaw. It’s one movement, following on with the stab, you see, if you miss him. It was too quick for them — But bayonet charge was worst, you know. Because your man cries out when you catch him, when you get him, you know. That’s what does you....
“No, oh no, this was no war like other wars. All the machinery of it. No, you couldn’t stand it, but for the men. The men are wonderful, you know. They’ll be wiped out.... No, it’s your men who keep you going, if you’re an officer.... But there’ll never be another war like this. Because the Germans are the only people who could make a war like this — and I don’t think they’ll ever do it again, do you?
“Oh, they were wonderful, the Germans. They were amazing. It was incredible, what they invented and did. We had to learn from them, in the first two years. But they were too methodical. That’s why they lost the war. They were too methodical. They’d fire their guns every ten minutes — regular. Think of it. Of course we knew when to run, and when to lie down. You got so that you knew almost exactly what they’d do — if you’d been out long enough. And then you could time what you wanted to do yourselves.
“They were a lot more nervous than we were, at the last. They sent up enough light at night from their trenches — you know, those things that burst in the air like electric light — we had none of that to do — they did it all for us — lit up everything. They were more nervous than we were....”
It was nearly two o’clock when Herbertson left. Lilly, depressed, remained before the fire. Aaron got out of bed and came uneasily to the fire.
“It gives me the bellyache, that damned war,” he said.
“So it does me,” said Lilly. “All unreal.”
“Real enough for those that had to go through it.”
“No, least of all for them,” said Lilly sullenly. “Not as real as a bad dream. Why the hell don’t they wake up and realise it!”
“That’s a fact,” said Aaron. “They’re hypnotised by it.”
“And they want to hypnotise me. And I won’t be hypnotised. The war was a lie and is a lie and will go on being a lie till somebody busts it.”
“It was a fact — you can’t bust that. You can’t bust the fact that it happened.”
“Yes you can. It never happened. It never happened to me. No more than my dreams happen. My dreams don’t happen: they only seem.”
“But the war did happen, right enough,” smiled Aaron palely.
“No, it didn’t. Not to me or to any man, in his own self. It took place in the automatic sphere, like dreams do. But the ACTUAL MAN in every man was just absent — asleep — or drugged — inert — dream-logged. That’s it.”
“You tell ‘em so,” said Aaron.
“I do. But it’s no good. Because they won’t wake up now even — perhaps never. They’ll all kill themselves in their sleep.”
“They wouldn’t be any better if they did wake up and be themselves — that is, supposing they are asleep, which I can’t see. They are what they are — and they’re all alike — and never very different from what they are now.”
Lilly stared at Aaron with black eyes.
“Do you believe in them less than I do, Aaron?” he asked slowly.
“I don’t even want to believe in them.”
“But in yourself?” Lilly was almost wistful — and Aaron uneasy.
“I don’t know that I’ve any more right to believe in myself than in them,” he replied. Lilly watched and pondered.
“No,” he said. “That’s not true — I KNEW the war was false: humanly quite false. I always knew it was false. The Germans were false, we were false, everybody was false.”
“And not you?” asked Aaron shrewishly.
“There was a wakeful, self-possessed bit of me which knew that the war and all that horrible movement was false for me. And so I wasn’t going to be dragged in. The Germans could have shot my mother or me or what they liked: I wou
ldn’t have joined the WAR. I would like to kill my enemy. But become a bit of that huge obscene machine they called the war, that I never would, no, not if I died ten deaths and had eleven mothers violated. But I would like to kill my enemy: Oh, yes, more than one enemy. But not as a unit in a vast obscene mechanism. That never: no, never.”
Poor Lilly was too earnest and vehement. Aaron made a fine nose. It seemed to him like a lot of words and a bit of wriggling out of a hole.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve got men and nations, and you’ve got the machines of war — so how are you going to get out of it? League of Nations?”
“Damn all leagues. Damn all masses and groups, anyhow. All I want is to get MYSELF out of their horrible heap: to get out of the swarm. The swarm to me is nightmare and nullity — horrible helpless writhing in a dream. I want to get myself awake, out of it all — all that mass-consciousness, all that mass-activity — it’s the most horrible nightmare to me. No man is awake and himself. No man who was awake and in possession of himself would use poison gases: no man. His own awake self would scorn such a thing. It’s only when the ghastly mob-sleep, the dream helplessness of the mass-psyche overcomes him, that he becomes completely base and obscene.”
“Ha — well,” said Aaron. “It’s the wide-awake ones that invent the poison gas, and use it. Where should we be without it?”
Lilly started, went stiff and hostile.
“Do you mean that, Aaron?” he said, looking into Aaron’s face with a hard, inflexible look.
Aaron turned aside half sheepishly.
“That’s how it looks on the face of it, isn’t it?” he said.
“Look here, my friend, it’s too late for you to be talking to me about the face of things. If that’s how you feel, put your things on and follow Herbertson. Yes — go out of my room. I don’t put up with the face of things here.”
Aaron looked at him in cold amazement.
“It’ll do tomorrow morning, won’t it?” he asked rather mocking.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 316